Last Tuesday EA's Lee Haddigan offered a detailed analysis of the power politics in Congress' "lame-duck" session, with battles over extension of tax cuts, the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" restriction on gays and lesbians in the US military, the DREAM Act to help children of immigrants, and the New START treaty with Russia.
In the partisan struggle between Republicans and Democrats, the GOP have gotten the tax cuts, and --- against Lee's expectations --- Don't Ask, Don't Tell is likely to be repealed. But this "progress" hides what could be a tragic and, let's say it, scandalous tale of politics.
On Thursday, The Daily Show took on the story that almost no media outlet in the US considered or dared to report: the filibuster in Congress that will probably kill off any prospect of assistance to the men and women --- firefighters, police, paramedics, machine operators --- who arrived at the scene of the collapsing and burning towers of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. Many of those responders have died, are dying, or are seriously ill.
The full episode includes The Daily Show's darkly humourous look at the Congressional politics and Jon Stewart's interview with 2008 Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, in which the standard plugging of a book is soon jettisoned for Huckabee's discomfort in handling Stewart's questions. But, for me, it is Stewart's interview of four 9-11 responders which is most illuminating and moving.
Watch the US version or the UK version.